Sunday 18 August 2013

Preferences and Electoral Strangeness

One of the more peculiar aspects of the Australian electoral system is the "preference swap" arrangements that, like under the table deals, have an insidious influence on the outcome. I will explain this electoral quirk briefly. At Federal elections, voters have two options on the Senate ballot: vote one candidate "group" above the line, or vote all candidates, from one to whatever, below the line. In New South Wales, there are over 100 candidates, and to vote below the line, you must number every single candidate (although, there is an exception, where you need only number 90% of candidates below the line to cast a valid ballot). Needless to say, most voters vote 1 above the line. This has the consequence of, effectively, giving your vote to the party you voted for to distribute as they see fit. The caveat being they have to tell us, the voting public, just how that distribution will take place. That is, they must provide "preference flows" in advance of the election.

This past weekend, the Senate preference flows were released; and there were some very unusual preference swaps. Minor parties routinely "swap" preferences so as to maximise their chances of election. Normally, you would assume parties would swap preferences with ideologically sympathetic parties; there are some notable cases where this is, indeed, the case. There are, however, other cases where bizarre preferencing has taken place. Two are worth noting: The Australian Sex and the WikiLeaks Party.

The Sex Party has preferenced the racist One Nation party against the more ideologically sympathetic Greens Party, while the WikiLeaks Party that has preferenced the Shooters Party and the racist Australia First Party ahead of the Greens Party. WikiLeaks and the Sex Party have more in common with the Greens than the other parties mentioned, which makes it bizarre that two ostensibly "libertarian" parties (that is to say, "social" libertarian) have preferenced right-wing parties ahead of their left-wing cohorts. This may be evidence of cynical preference swapping, or spite towards a more prominent left-wing party.

The "defence" provided by the WikiLeaks and Sex Party was galling. The former attributed an "administrative error" to the absurd choice, while the Sex Party offered meekly that they "had to put One Nation somewhere!" Which is true; all parties must allocate full preferences, all 110 of them. The question remains unanswered, however, as to why they put them ahead of a more sympathetic party, like the Greens. It is possibly just cynical preferencing, which is entirely acceptable: we have a system that allows parties to swap preferences, or make preference deals, and all parties are free to do so. If that is the case, however, then they could at least be honest about it. Attempting to obfuscate their true intentions is electoral cowardice.

One could argue, and it has been argued, that these other parties are unlikely to inherit the Sex Party's or WikiLeaks' votes. If that is the case, then it makes it even more ridiculous to preference them ahead of the Greens; it has caused needless consternation among likely voters for those parties. What is really taking place is a gamble. The two parties in question are gambling on the order of elimination, hoping to pick up votes from right-wing minor parties ahead of the Greens. It is, of course, acceptable to want to beat other parties, even parties that are broadly sympathetic. The problem is, however, that sometimes electoral gambles backfire. 2004 in Victoria is a case in point. Family First candidate Steve Fielding was elected to the Senate on Labor and Democrat preferences. The latter two parties had preferenced against the Greens in that state; as a result, an adversarial party was elected as opposed to a sympathetic one.

Other parties have been more principled in the preferencing. The Secular Party has stuck to a sympathetic flow (on a personal note, their preference flow in New South Wales is closest to my below the line vote); while the Pirate Party took a more democratic line, allowing their members to vote on the preference order. Perhaps the strangest preference flow comes from the Shooters Party, which is, quite simply, all over the place and is, at present, unfathomable (at least to this observer).

There are two points I will make in conclusion. First, these kinds of shenanigans have only strengthened my support for Optional Preferential Voting (which would eliminate these very shenanigans!); second, it is ridiculous for minor political parties to preference against their sympathies. The Senate is so finely balanced that counter-intuitive preferencing can throw the Senate out of kilter for up to six years. If the gamble some of these parties have taken backfires, it could lead to antithetical policy directions that undermine their own agenda, and the agenda of progressive politics more broadly.

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